giant african land snails

Question
QUESTION: hi, ive got a really odd question, but my giant african land snails had eggs 3 days ago, ant there hatching alredy, but i thought that they took 14 to 21 days to hatch, i guess it was 3 days ago they was born as thats when i had cleaned them out... please help.. is this norm, thanks

ANSWER: Hi Cheryl, I keep African land snails as well. The hatch time can vary with the temperature but three days sounds very unlikely! When my snails lay eggs they are sometimes on the surface and sometimes buried. I would suspect that the eggs that you thought were just layed three days ago were buried for a while and have become unearthed from the snails' activity. They went through most of the incubation period before you discovered them. I often find baby snails in my tank from eggs that I never even realized were in the tank!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi, thanks for the reply, but there was no way they had been hiding, as my husband had put freah soil in the whole of the tank and trown the prevoius soil out, so the eggs had only been there from the weds an they hatch on the fri.

Answer
Hi Cheryl, That is really strange :). The shortest incubation time that I have read is about 12 days and yours hatched out in 1/4 of that time! It sounds like you saw the actual eggs as well and didn't just discover babies in the new soil. The reason I mention that is that there is one species of GALS that has live birth (Achatina iredalei). This species looks pretty different from the others with a  yellow shell.
If you are in the U.S or Canada you should be aware that the giant African snails are illegal to have as pets due to their potential as agricultural pests. Keep that in mind if and when you are trying to find homes for the babies.